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In April 1991, Linus Torvalds, then 21 years old, started working on some simple ideas for an operating system. Then, on 25 August 1991, Torvalds posted to comp.os.minix:

“

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).[1]

”

After the post, many people contributed code to the project. By September 1991, Linux version 0.01 was released. It had 10,239 lines of code. In October 1991, Linux version 0.02 was released.[2]

The X Window System was soon moved to Linux. In March 1992, Linux version 0.95 was the first to be capable of running X. This large version number jump (from 0.1x to 0.9x) was because of a feeling that a version 1.0 with no major missing parts would be released soon.

On March 141994, Linux 1.0.0 was released, with 176,250 lines of code. In March 1995, Linux 1.2.0 was released (310,950 lines of code).

Linus decided, on May 91996, to adopt Tux the penguin as mascot for Linux.

Version 2 of Linux, released on June 9, 1996, was a landmark. Strong development continued:

In the start, Torvalds released Linux under a license which did not allow anyone to sell it. This was soon changed to the GNU General Public License (GPL), during version 0.12. This license allows distribution and sale of modified and unmodified versions of Linux but requires that all those copies be released under the same license and be accompanied by the complete corresponding source code.

Torvalds has said licensing Linux under the GPL as the "best thing I ever did."[7]